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Chris Braithwaite
After becoming one of the lucky few, in November of 1967, to be born a Texan, I spent the first ten years of my life in Germany, Vietnam and Thailand as a military brat. Upon returning to the United States, my family settled in, of all places, central Arkansas where I have lived for the past twenty-five years. Having graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in nursing, I will do so again in the fall of 2003 with a Bachelor of Science in biology and minor in chemistry, also from the U of A. For the past fifteen years my spare time away from reef keeping is spent working for an air medical program at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock, where I met my wife Roxanne.
While Arkansas is not exactly a hot bed of marine enthusiasm, my isolation has driven me to travel and learn far more than I thought I ever would about this hobby. My treks have taken me to workshops and conventions in Athens, Baltimore, Dallas and Chicago in effort to hone my husbandry skills for marine animals. I practice my craft on a 120 gallon plenum system that consists of primarily large polyp stony corals and soft corals. My success in the hobby is not without the help of my two sons and every family member that has undergone my crash course in marine tank emergency preparedness.